your eye. You try it!' My daughter talked for an hour, and then he said: 'If you think you'll sedooce me into committing of myself, you'll find you're mistook. So I should think better of it, if I was you. Yours werry truly, Robert Steptoe.' Just as if he was writing a letter." Both ladies laughed, and Lizarann pricked her finger badly, and it redded all over the 'emstitch. But she couldn't understand the laugh. She was not fond of her aunt's husband; you can't love pock-marks unless they have some counterpoise in beauty of disposition. But she had a certain spirit of partisanship about her belongings, too!

"I suppose the children go to some school—Board School or something," said Teacher.

"They haven't children, thank Heaven! these people," said the outside lady. "But there's a little girl—somehow—with a father. They said she came here—at least, I suppose the 'school-house up the road' meant here."

"Then she must be here now. What was her name? Did you make out?"

"Eliza Ann something—Doubleday, I think, as near as I can recollect. No, it wasn't Doubleday. What could it have been?..." And this lady tapped one hand with the other, to keep on showing how hard she was thinking.

"Was it Eliza Ann Coupland? Come here, Lizarann, and tell the lady if it was you."

Lizarann approached by instalments, in awe. She had received false impressions from the conversation—one that her uncle could write a letter, and this lady knew it. A second that her aunt's children—if any—would have been all over little sand-pits that would catch and hold the grime awful, like their father, and that therefore we ought to be thankful. A third that she was a "little girl somehow," and she had never been told that she was one somehow, only that she was a little girl.

"Are you the little girl?" said the lady.

"I don't know, miss," said Lizarann. She thought the lady seemed impatient. And whom did she mean by "they" when she said, "Oh dear!—how trying they are!"?

"Ought I to tell her to say 'My lady,' or not?" said Teacher.

"Oh, bother!" said the lady. "What does your father do, my dear? You're a nice little thing, only your mouth's too big."

Timid murmurs came from the catechumen. "What's that you say? Father goes out to work? What does father go out to work at?"

"That's impossible!" said Teacher. "Her father's blind, and she leads him about."

"I hope you're not telling stories, child, like the rest, because I like you all except your mouth. Come close here, so that I can hear you, and tell me what your father does. Only don't splutter or gabble!"

Whereupon Lizarann gave her version of her father's professional employment. She knew she was to say, if pressed on the point, that her father was "an asker," and she said it, standing first on one leg and then on the other uneasily. She had a mixture of misgiving and confidence that the statement would be sufficient; just as you or I might have felt in stating, for instance, that our father was an apparitor, or a stevedore, or a turnover-at-press. But she had absolutely no idea of the meaning of her phrases.

"What on earth does the child mean? Say it again, small person!" Thus the lady.

"A asker!" The child had the name perfectly clear, and added "Yass!"—to drive it home—with eyes of assurance standing wide open. Both ladies made her repeat it, and asked her what she meant by it; but she evidently did not know. They pondered and speculated, till on a sudden a light broke. "Is it possible she means a beggar?" said Miss Fossett. Then the two of them spoke in an undertone, and Lizarann felt that her family affairs were being discussed over her head, but by creatures too great for her to take exception to, or even to interpret. Presently the lady addressed her again:

"What does he ask for, little stuffy? Yes, you may come as close as that. What does he ask for, child?"

Thereat Lizarann, in support of her family credit, said: "He took all of nine shillings in coarpers once on a time." She couldn't compete with the lady in birth and position, but she had a proper pride in her race, for all that.

The lady and Miss Fossett looked at one another, and the latter said: "It's quite possible. They do sometimes." And Lizarann felt flattered and that she had done her duty. And that when she told her father, he would certainly give her a peppermint-drop. She had a sense of an improved position as she went back to her sewing. But the two ladies went on talking about her under their breath, and she fancied they were resuming some incidents of the previous Saturday at Tallack Street. Teacher seemed to have heard something of them, and she now connected them with her pupil. As the lady ripened towards departure she became more audible.

"It only shows the truth of what I'm always saying to Sir Murgatroyd. How can you expect them to be any better when they have such wretched homes? Give them air and light and sanitation and things, and then talk goody to them if you like.... Oh dear!—I must rush. I've promised to go with Sibyl and those Inglis girls to Hurlingham this afternoon." Then the lady had a recrudescence of her perception that Lizarann was funny, for she turned round, going away, to say to Miss Fossett: "Oh dear, how funny they are! Fancy an Asker!" and, as it were, fell a little into Miss Fossett's bosom to find sympathy, afterwards kissing her, and saying, "But how good you are!" rather gushily, and making off. She did say, however, to Lizarann: "Good-bye, little person! Consider I've kissed you. I would, only it's such a sticky day."

Much of this conversation would have been quite unintelligible to the child, even if she had heard the whole of it. Her mind was not prepared to receive it, as, not having had much time to reflect since her birth, she had not noticed that her domestic life had anything exceptional about it. Extension of her social circle had not, so far, convinced her that there was anything unusual in their rows and quarrels; in fact, she was gently creeping on to a belief that Steptoes—their inclusive name—was the rule, and the balance of the Universe the exception. But her unconsciousness of the actual was liable to inroads from without, and that day at school roused the curiosity of an inquiring mind. Lizarann asked herself for the first time whether the conditions of her home-life were really normal, and nothing better was to be looked forward to in the future. No doubt Tallack Street would have sided with the lady in the views she expressed of any one house in it, though each house would have laid claim to an exceptional character for itself. But in the case of Steptoe's its unanimity would have been impressive; for Lizarann's Uncle Steptoe he'd be in liquor as often as not, and frequently aim a stool or suchlike at his wife's head—besides language you could hear the length of the street.

It does not follow that he had no provocation. Mrs. Steptoe was a fine study of the effect of exasperating circumstances on a somewhat uncertain temper, and Lizarann conceived of the result as a typical aunt. She had married, some twelve years since, from motives difficult of analysis, a cobbler who drank, towards whom she had always professed indifference. She seemed to have based a low opinion of all mankind on an assumption that they were none on 'em much better than her husband, and most of 'em were a tidy sight worse. If so, the tidiness of the sight might have disappointed orderly, old-fashioned folk. Not that Bob Steptoe was a bad sort when he was sober. Only that was so seldom.

Now, on the Saturday evening in question, this uncle by marriage of Lizarann, having previously taken too much beer, took too much whisky, and became quarrelsome. "A man ain't always answerable, look at it how you may!" said Tallack Street. Let us hope Mr. Steptoe was not, as on